The video was created using a custom-created LED wand that lights up whenever it is in the presence of an RFID field. The collected images of the wand glowing at various points, then created a composite animation with those pics, which turns out looking like the atomic orbital 3d.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

And even assuming that something like fMRI lie detection worked and could be administered to an unwilling participant -- what's so much worse about that than, say, regular lie detection? We've already decided as a society that we're okay with the idea of a lie detector (so comfortable, in fact, that we don't care that the ones we already have don't really work). Why would we be uncomfortable with a lie detector that simply utilized a different technology?

The bigger problem, it seems to me, is if these new technologies are as flawed as (or worse than) current technologies, yet we trust them anyway. People tend to trust anything that involves a picture of a brain scan, regardless of its validity. Add that to the usual terrible job jurors do, and we've got a recipe for a new generation of faulty convictions.

"...[T]he beautifully named 'Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette' insisted that local officials use the following letter template (dated 856) when sending apologies to offended dinner hosts. The guilty party would copy the template text, enter the dinner host's name, sign the letter and then deliver with head bowed..."

Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state. The next morning, after hearing others speak on the subject, I realised what had happened, whereupon I was overwhelmed with confusion and ready to sink into the earth with shame.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Hence, cell phone carriers do not have to pay royalties to music publishers every time a customer's ringtone plays:

In her ruling, US District Judge Denise Cote pointed out that the carrier has no way to control when a ringtone is being played and earns no revenue when it happens -- customers decide when and where their phones can ring, and they turn the phone on or off without the carrier's consent. She also said that performing a work publicly usually means that it must take place in a public space where a "substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of its social acquaintances is gathered."

Regardless, Cote says that mobile carriers are only responsible for the transmission of the song to the phone, which doesn't count as a performance in and of itself. "Even if the customer could listen to the download as it was being received, and contemporaneously perceive it as the musical work, that would not constitute a public performance," wrote the judge. Additionally, there is no expectation of profit on the part of the carrier or the customer when the phone begins blasting Cher out of its tiny built-in speaker. This means even if it was a performance, it would be exempt from falling under royalty requirements.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The USB PC Prankster looks like a stock flash drive, but as you can clearly see above, a few toggle switches enable it to become quite the headache. Once plugged in, the unlucky PC that it's attached to will have its Caps Lock enabled and disabled at random, see garbled text splattered about quarterly reports and be victim to uncontrollable, erratic cursor movements.

...But one of the first things I discovered is how much stuff you can cram on it that is totally free.

Project Gutenberg, which is trying to get everything that's now off copyright onto the Web, has posted thousands of classics, and it's easy to download them in seconds on a home computer and then move them over to the Kindle.

Three decades ago I bought (but still have not read) a copy of The Brothers Karamazov, which sits on a shelf at home. Now, with the Kindle, in less than five months I already have not read the electronic edition of The Brothers Karamazov on three continents.

...The rabbis wrote that this new technology, which was explained to them by elevator technicians and engineers in "a written and oral technical opinion," made them aware for the first time that using Shabbos elevators may be a "desecration of the Sabbath."

They did not name the offending technology. But for several years there has been debate among Orthodox rabbis in Israel over whether devices that measure the weight in an elevator car, and adjust power accordingly, effectively make entering a car the equivalent of pressing a button.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand - but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand - every day for more than sixty (60) years.

"With a windmill, I could stay awake at night reading instead of going to bed at seven with the rest of Malawi," he writes. But more importantly, "with a windmill, we'd finally release ourselves from the troubles of darkness and hunger... A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom."

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Friday, October 02, 2009

During a daringbankrobbery in Sweden that involved a helicopter, the criminals disabled a police helicopter by placing a package with the word "bomb" near the helicopter hangar, thus engaging the full caution/evacuation procedure while they escaped.